Pretty Little Liars season 4 episode 10 review: The Mirror Has Three Faces

This review contains spoilers.

4.10 The Mirror Has Three Faces

We’re only two weeks away from the summer finale of Pretty Little Liars, and the start of ‘World War A’, and the show sure is going out of its way to implicate Cece. To me, this means that Red Coat is absolutely, categorically not Cece, and it’s just another red herring to keep us guessing. The evidence, however, is pretty compelling, with the revelation this week that Alison and Cece were even closer than we thought. Dressing up as each other and “swapping” personalities? That certainly sounds like A behaviour.

Emily inadvertently, and somewhat unwillingly, does the most fact-finding this week as Mrs DiLaurentis invites her to stay in Alison’s old room while her house is being rebuilt. The other Liars think it’s a brilliant idea and coerce Emily into seizing the opportunity for crime solving. Not a lot of actual detective work is done, but she does have a nice heart-to-heart with Alison’s mother about being gay, loving Alison and their shared ‘delusions’ when it comes to mysterious blonde girls in the street. Then they find Red Coat’s secret lair in the basement, complete with peep holes for spying on the remaining DiLaurentises.

Spencer and Toby revisit Dr. Palmer when A’s musical package is received and, after a little sense-memory jogging, he mentions Mrs.= DiLaurentis having been there while he was a doctor. Spencer bulldozes in and asks her what she might have been doing there, and she says that Alison and Cece had played a trick on her. She received a phone call about her daughter, only to get there and find Cece dressed head-to-toe in Alison’s clothes. They did this a lot, apparently, and liked to swap personalities from time to time. Now, if that doesn’t make Cece as Red Coat too obvious, then I don’t know what would.

But where is she? Aria heads to Pittsburgh with new beau Jake to find out, and a woman tells her it was Alison who got Cece kicked out of college. Cece also called Aria, Spencer, Hannah and Emily ‘she-devils’, thinking them also responsible for the incident at the frat party. She’s not in any of the upcoming promos, but if Cece doesn’t turn up before the big reveal then it’s going to look fishy either way. She clearly has something to do with Alison’s disappearance and/or the A team, but that doesn’t mean she’s Red Coat. Someone else gave us a much better clue to her identity.

Wren’s back! Dr. Creepy surpassed himself in this episode by pretty much confirming he’s in cahoots with A. His conversation with Mona revealed that they used to be on the same side before she realised where his loyalties lay so, now that Mona is seemingly with the Liars, that makes Wren on team evil. Hannah asks him whether he can sneak her into Radley to ask Mona about Cece and he’s straight on the phone promising to “take care of things on [his] end.” Soon enough, he manipulates Veronica Hastings into paying her own visit to Mona, and she’s kicked off Ashley’s case for coercing her. That’s a bad day for the Marins.

The clue came when we later see him absent-mindedly colouring a therapy picture. He colours the coat of a dark-haired girl red, implicating all of the brunettes in town as well as the blondes. Who’s that? Aria, Spencer, Emily, Jenna, Mona and Melissa. We do know it’s not Hannah (as if we didn’t already) because the week’s creepiest moment showed Red Coat reflected in a mirror behind Hannah when she wasn’t looking. Let’s rule out Spencer, Emily and Mona out, too, though I have to admit the ‘Aria is a’ theory does have some sound evidence behind it.

Speaking of Aria and her endless inconsequential storylines, Ezra got a chance to really break our hearts this week when he discovered Malcolm not to be his son after all. It really was a heartbreaking scene and watching him be jilted by Aria for her new boyfriend was even worse. Even if I still think he’s a creepy paedophile who belongs in jail, that’s pretty harsh.

Next week we’ll probably tread some more water waiting for the big reveals of the finale and Halloween special, but at least there’s line-dancing to look forward to. See you there!

Read Caroline’s review of the previous episode, Into The Deep, here.

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